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Structural Realignment and the Case of the Protest Cycle Jeff A. Larson University of Arizona [email protected] 1
Structural Realignment and the Case of the Protest Cycle
Jeff A. Larson
University of Arizona
1
Structural Realignment and the Case of the Protest Cycle Jeff A. Larson
University of Arizona
The wave of protest that rolled across the U.S. in the 1960s and 70s was an event of
historical proportions. As social movement scholars work to disentangle the causes and
consequences of various movements that peaked in those decades, a persistant belief remains:
social movements matter, they create change. As we set out to amass evidence that indeed
movements do have consequences, the field of movement scholars has not yet settled on a
framework for theorizing social change. With the broader sociological interest that exists in
theorizing social change and the valuable theories that are being developed to account for it, it is
surprising that movement scholars have not (with exceptions, of course) been more lively
participants in this discussion.
One such discussion includes William Sewell and his theory of “eventful” structural
change. Sewell (1992) lays out a theory of social structures as dynamic processes in which the
“enactment of structures” plays a central role in maintaining, or changing, structures. Social
movements are structures that must be enacted, and so are the structures that movements arise to
challenge. I find Sewell’s conceptualization of structures and social change to be a useful one,
and employ it here to situate social movements in a larger process of social change. I also think
that theories of social movements, and particularly cycles of protest, can usefully add to the
framework that Sewell offers us, and I hope to do that here. Social change, for Sewell (1996) is
a process in which “a sequence of ruptures disarticulates the previous structural network, makes
repair difficult, and makes a novel rearticulation possible” (p. 844). The social movements
literature is amassing evidence of just such a process. In this paper I build on the work of
2
McCarthy and McPhail (1998) and investigate just a small but important piece of this process as
it applies to social movements. Particularly, we are interested in how structures change as the
result of a historical sequence of events. What results is a clearer picture, based on systemmatic
empirical observations, of how events shape the course of history.
Structuring Protest
Structures consist of three elements, according to Sewell (1992): schemas, resources, and
modes of power.
Cultural schemas provide actors with meanings, motivations, and recipes for social
action. Resources provide them (differntially) with the means and stakes of action.
Modes of power regulate action—by specifying what schemas are legitimate, by
determining which persons and groups have access to which resources, and by
adjudicating conflicts that arise in the course of action. (p. 842).
Schemas, resources, and modes of power must be enacted by individuals, and, I would
add, collectivities. The repertoire of contention (Tilly 1978, 1986; Tarrow 1993) is one such
structure, and is composed of “not always consious” rules, “metaphors, and assumptions” that
can be “generalized” and “transposed” from one situation to another (Sewell 1992, pp. 7-8).
What Sewell calls “transposable,” and what Tarrow (1994) calls “modular,” is the ability of
actors to apply a given set of schemas in multiple settings. It is the actors’ ability to creatively
apply such schemas new settings and in novel ways that provides an opening for social change
(Sewell 1992). Resources empower schemas, they give wings to these creations, and in turn,
schemas empower resources. Movement scholars have long acknowledged the strength that
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movements find in numbers, in networks, in their organizations (McAdam, 1982; Morris, 1981;
Snow, Zurcher, Ekland-Olson, 1980; Gould, 1991; McAdam and Paulsen, 1993), but a less clear
understanding of how these resources act on schemas. One line of research that does move in
this direction is studies of diffusion of protest tactics (Soule 1997; Soule and Zylan, 1997; Strang
and Soule, 1998; McAdam and Rucht, 1993). As McAdam (1997 [1983]) puts it,
Indigenous organizations furnish the context in which tactical innovations are devised
and subsequently carried out. Such organizations serve to mobilize community resources
in support of new tactical forms and to supplyu leaders to direct their use, participants to
carry them out, and communication networks to facilitate their use and dissemination to
other insurgent groups. …It is the established communication network’s characteristic of
existing organizations that ordinarily make this crucial process of diffusion possible. (p.
341)
The third element of social structures, modes of power, legitimates schemas and
adjudicates conflicts. Who legitimates the repertoire of contention, and, when conflict arises,
which clearly is central to the life of social movements, who adjudicates? Here the social
movements literature is underdeveloped. What little has been written on movement tactics
locates the source of legitimation within movements, in their ability to secure resources to
innovate and diffuse new tactics. But social movements do not stand alone, and we should not
dismiss the possibility that tactics are legitimated through interactions between movements and
their environs. It is here that our discussion of protest cycles finds its footing.
Cycles of protest (Tarrow 1993, 1994) are characterized by five elements: heightened
conflict, broad geographic and sector diffusion, the appearance of new social movement
4
organizations, new frames of meaning, and the invention of new forms of collective action. It is
these new forms of action that we focus on here, but it is within the context of the cycle of
protest that I argue new protest forms emerge and take root. All of the elements of a protest
cycle depend upon interactions between movements and other structures, and it is these
dynamics that lead to new movements, escalating conflict, diffusion of protest, new and
transformed frames, and tactical innovation that social movement scholars study. This emphasis
on dynamic processes is not new, but Sewell reminds us that movements are never still, but
rather continually enacted “cultural schemas, distributions of resources, and modes of power
[that] combine in an interlocking and mutually sustaining fashion to reproduce consistent streams
of social practice” (Sewell 1996a, p. 9). The analysis in this paper examines the process of
repertoire building as an interaction between movements and the state.
The Repertoire of Contention and Structures That Enable and Constrain
The repertoire of contention, as conceptualized by Tilly (1978), is the slate of options
available to challengers for organizing their actions and making claims. Despite the nearly
infinite possibilities for action, the theory of the repertoire recognizes that at any given time only
some of those possibilities are practically available to challengers. The constraints on such
options for action are cultural, based on what challengers know how to do and what others
expect them to do. Tilly’s concept parallels Sewell’s notion of structure. What Sewell does that
Tilly does not is to make explicit the elements of schemas, resources, and modes of power that
compose and constrain the repertoire.
There are various ways to approach the study of development of the repertoire. From one
direction we can say that the repertoire enables action, that is, it provides a template for action.
5
Questions then arise about where does the template come from, and how does it diffuse, and to
whom, under what circumstances? The literature on diffusion mentioned above raises these very
questions (cf. Strang and Soule, 1998). From another direction the repertoire constrains action,
making clear that some actions are simply not possible or acceptable. This might lead to
questions such as who limits these options, and by what means are they limited? Scholars
coming from this direction are trying to shed light on the effects of “repression,” which includes
the political context within which protest emerges, such as regime types and the policing of
protest (cf., della Porta 1995, 1996; della Porta and Reiter 1998). A third approach recognizes
that the repression of protest can be an enabling factor for the repertoire. Questions that arise
include how does repression of protest shape the meaning of tactics, and can repression enable
new tactics, and under what circumstances does repression help or hinder collective challenges?
If we are interested in the empowerment of schemas, resources, and modes of power that
constitute the repertoire of contention, one fruitful starting point may be its interaction with the
state. As Tarrow (1994) argues the social movement arose in conjuction with and as a challenge
to the modern state. If true, the interaction between movements and the state plays a defining
role for social movements. It is a reasonable next step to examine the interaction of state
structures and movement structures (such as the repertoire of contention) as an interactive
process of co-constitution. Does this interaction of state and movement structures enable and
constrain the tactical repertoire of protestors and lead to durable social change? This question
guides the analyses presented here in an effort to illuminate broader processes of social change.
By focusing on the cycle of protest we can learn about the dynamic, interactive sequence of
events that leads to the rupture and rearticulation of the network of structures (Sewell 1996,
1996a).
6
The analysis is in two parts, both of which look at the relationship between protest tactics
and state response, specifically, police response. We begin with a correspondence analysis—a
useful technique for presenting relationships in graphical form—that allows us to conceptualize
the tactical repertoire over time and detect possible structural patterns. In the second part we
utilize regression techniques to verify and corroborate the observed patterns identified in part
one.
DATA AND METHODS
The data are collected from newspaper reports of collective action events in the US
between 1965 and 1975, encompassing the peak years of the protest wave that began in the late
1950s and stretched into the 1980s. We use the New York Times, a common source for data in
social movement research but one not without its limitations. For newspapers in the US with
national daily coverage, the Times is among the best for the breadth and depth of coverage of the
events we are interested in. It does however tend to bias New York area events as well as larger
and more confrontational events. If mass media such as the Times are an important channel for
tactical diffusion as some suggest (Soule 1997; Strang and Soule, 1998), then using it as a source
may actually benefit our understanding of protest cycles and repertoire dynamics. To counter the
bias effects of New York coverage we introduce controls for New York area events whenever
possible.
Collective action events were coded if they meet three criteria: 1) they are collective; 2)
claims are made by the participants; and 3) they are public. If these conditions are met, we
coded each event for the basic who, what, when, where and why information, including activities
and forms of action, initiating groups involved, claims being made, and police response at the
event. Intercoder reliability checks were conducted at regular intervals across the span of data
7
collection, and consistantly offer reassurances of reliability above the 0.80 level throughout. All
said, across the eleven years under study here 8,255 events were coded. In part one we limit our
attention to protest events and include 6,211 observations, each unit of analysis being an event
cross-classified by the primary tactic used by protestors and police response. The loss of
observations is accounted for by the operationalization of the following concepts.
Tactics. Protest tactics are coded into 14 categories which are elaborated in Appendix A.
We limit our attention to “outsider” tactics (Walker 1991; Soule, McAdam, McCarthy, and Su
1999), and therefore eliminate from the analysis such tactics as lawsuits, boycotts, and press
conferences. Though such tactics are used throughout the protest cycle, they are not likely to
induce a police response and are therefore beyond the analytical frame of this study. Also
excluded are all labor movement activity and events of ethnic/racial violence, which are typically
targeted attacks against individuals or groups, rather than protest events by social movements.
Police Response. Police response at each event is coded in one of five categories of
increasing involvement and intensity as reported in the Times: no presence, present with no
action, action taken, physical force used, and violence used. Appendix B gives descriptions and
examples for these categories. The categories are coded here to reflect the greatest level of
police involvement at each event. So, for example, if police are present and use force, police
response is coded as "physical force used."
Correspondence Analysis
We first ask What does the relationship between protestor tactics and police response
look like over time? Without pre-specifying any underlying dimensions, correspondence
analysis plots data in a contingency table on a two-dimensional plane, giving graphical
8
representation to relationships in the data. To see the relationships over time, the data must be
disaggregated into cross-sectional snapshots. I have divided the eleven years into three
periods—an arbitrary distinction. Period 1, 1965-68, spans the peak and subsequent decline of
the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act which called for the desegregation of all public
facilities was signed in 1964, and by 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement
were in full swing across the South testing the strength and enforcement of this new law. Period
two, from 1969 through 1972, includes the peak years of activity across all movements. The
student movement was particularly active in this period, the anti-war movement grew
increasingly visible, and the women's and environmental movements appeared as a force. The
third period spans 1973 through 1975 and coincides with the end of the Vietnam war (and
subsequent disappearance of that movement), as well as a general pattern of waning protest
activity. In loose terms, the three periods can be thought of as the waxing, peak, and waning of
the protest wave.
The three figures in Appendix C shows the graphical relationship of tactics and police
response for each of the three periods. First a few words about interpretation. The dimensions
of this graph have no explicit meaning. In general, proximity of coordinates implies correlation,
and greater distance from the origin suggests stronger correlation. Points that lie along similar
axes which pass through the origin are positively correlated when they lie on the same side of the
origin, and negatively correlated when the origin separates them.
The first thing to notice is indicated by the shaded regions. Tactics that lie within the
shaded areas are most likely to elude the watchful eye of the police. The boundaries of these
regions are obtained by drawing lines perpendicular to the axes (through the origin) formed by
the two nearest police responses. Therefore the shaded region represents tactics with a tendency
9
to have no police present. Note that the size of the shaded region increases across the eleven
years. From this we might infer a certain amount of increasing confidence that this relationship
becomes more defined in the 1970s. Police are even less likely to make an appearance for these
protest tactics than in earlier periods. In all three periods there is a consistent set of tactics that
fall in the shaded region which generally meets our expectations. It is not surprising that tactics
such as vigils, ceremonies, and information distribution elude the watchful eye of the police.
They are all legal and essentially non-violent or disruptive. Lack of police presence for these
tactics suggests that they are institutionalized tactics widely seen to be legitimate and expected.
Also not surprising is the relative proximity of seemingly violent and/or disruptive tactics to
categories of greater police intensity. Riots, conflicts, and civil disobedience consistently attract
police presence, and, particularly for the former two, the use of force by police.1 Attacks follow a
similar pattern, although in Period 2 the tactic break from this pattern—for no immediately
obvious reason—and tends to have no police present.
If the first pattern is notable for its stability, the second is remarkable for its dynamics.
One protest tactic in particular, civil disobedience, seems to be on a wandering path away from
police action toward police present. It appears that this disruptive tactic, a significant and
memorable part of movements of this period, moves from the illegitimate realm in the mid-1960s
to become tolerated, if not legitimated, by the mid-1970s. In Period 1, civil disobedience has a
negative relationship with police present, and a strong positive relationship with police action.
In Period 2 the relationship with police action is still strong and positive, but police present also
1 While the relationship between riots and violent police response is not surprising, we should call into question how riots come to be defined as riots. It may be (based on my own unsystematic observations) that events become riots when police don helmets, shields, and become violent. If there is some truth and consistency to this observation, then we should be cautioned to not assume causation here. Unlike most tactics in this analysis, riots are not a pre-planned or organized form of protest. We cannot therefore be too careful to avoid conflating police response with such a "tactic."
10
becomes strongly and positively correlated, even more so than police action. By Period 3 the
relationship with police present remains and police action becomes weaker.
The two patterns that become apparent in the correspondence analysis are consistant with
the institutional changes studied by McCarthy and McPhail, and further suggest a possible
institutional change on the side of movements. If police departments institutionalize their
response to protest, one might expect a pattern of increasing stability of response (as seen in the
growing shaded region), or of decreasing intensity of response to common tactics. The latter
pattern does not appear except in the case of civil disobedience—certainly a mainstay in the
repertoire of this protest cycle. Riots and conflicts continue to elicit harsh police reactions and
suggest that, despite evidence that police departments made adjustments to minimize violence
and confrontation with protestors (McCarthy and McPhail 1998), infrastructural changes by
police do not translate into observed changes in policing. The case of civil disobedience,
however, does fit the expected pattern, and also implies a process of institutionalization of the
protest tactic.
These patterns are net of the shear number of events for each category, and are
generalized across movements, groups, events, and contexts. That is, they suggest patterns that
on average exist in interactions between protestor tactics and police response. If we want to
better understand the institutionalization of protest tactics, we will want to know whether police
response changes net of movements, groups, events, and contexts. We should also ask not just
whether civil disobedience is less repressed, but if it diffuses throughout the protest cycle to
other movements and groups. In the next section we turn to a more detailed analysis of the
apparent institutionalization of civil disobedience.
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Civil Disobedience: The Institutionalization of a Protest Tactic?
In this part of the analysis we ask whether civil disobedience as a protest tactic becomes
institutionalized. Evidence of institutionalization should show 1) diffusion of the tactic and 2)
increasing accomodation by the state. We will use three indicators of diffusion: an increase in
the number of civil disobedience events; an increase in the number of groups that use civil
disobedience; and an increase in the number of movements that use civil disobedience. State
accommodation is operationalized as a decrease in the intensity of police response to events of
civil disobedience.
Figure 1 shows the occurrence of civil disobedience from 1965 to 1975. Though the
tactic was widely used by the civil rights movement in the first half of the sixties, there is a clear
pattern here of increasing use of civil disobedience. The peak in 1969 correlates with the peak of
the protest cycle in which the student movement was particularly active, and a second peak in
1972 reflects the peak of anti-war demonstrations. This trend suggests that as protest activity
increased so too did the use of this tactic, possibly diffusing from the civil rights movement to
students and others.
Figure 2 offers further support for the institutionalization hypothesis. This chart shows
that of the 37 groups that had codes in our dataset, 12 had used civil disobedience at least once in
1965. But by 1975, 27 groups had used the tactic. This further supports the claim that civil
disobedience diffused throughout the protest cycle. To approximate social movements with
these data we look at the claims made by protestors at each event.
If civil disobedience diffused across movements we should find the tactic used with an
increasing number of claims. Figure 3 shows just such a pattern. In 1965 civil disobedience was
used in association with 22 different claims. This number steadily increased over the course of
12
the decade until, by 1975, 81 different claims were made using civil disobedience as the primary
tactic. For all three indicators of diffusion—number of events, number of groups, and number of
movements using the tactic—the data provide evidence that civil disobedience diffused to new
groups and movements throughout the protest cycle. For institutionalization of a protest tactic to
occur, not only must the tactic diffuse to new groups and movements, but state repression of the
tactic should also decrease. In the first part of this analysis we found suggestive evidence that
civil disobedience elicited a more tolerant police response as time went on. Here we subject this
finding to a second test using regression techniques that will test the effects of civil disobedience
on police response net of group, movement, and event characteristics, and context. We can now
ask Does the intensity of police response to civil disobedience significantly decrease from 1965-
75?
Police response. The same five categories of police response—no police present, present
but no action, action taken, physical force, and violence—constitute the dependent variable.
Though the categories are ordered, it is unlikely that they are evenly spaced. This is considered
further as the appropriate regression technique is chosen.
Civil Disobedience. Civil disobedience in this dataset includes all events whose primary
activity includes any illegal activity, as well as activities that may not be technically illegal, but
are broadly socially unacceptable when and where they occurred (e.g., desegregation attempts
following passage of the Civil Rights Act). Since we do not want to confuse civil disobedience
as a protest tactic with uncoordinated acts of violence, we will not include events also coded as
an attack, riot, conflict, physical attack or kidnapping.2
2 This is the coding of civil disobedience used consistently throughout this paper, for correspondence analysis and regressions alike.
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Controls. Theories of policing maintain that the intensity of police response will vary
with the level of threat that they perceive in a given situation. To control for this possibility we
include controls for groups, movements, and event characteristics. To operationalize movements
events are characterized by the primary claims that are made by protestors, and we include
controls for the two movements with the greatest rates of civil disobedience, the anti-war and
civil rights movements. Three group variables are used to control for an array of group
characteristics: blacks, students, and women. Characteristics of the event include such things as
size, duration, dispersion, and intensity of the event. With this data we are able to control for
event size, operationalized as the number of reported participants.
As research on protest policing has shown, the context of protest greatly affects the
degree and kind of police that occurs [cite protest policing literature]. Although most of this
research concentrates primarily on political opportunity structures at the regime level, we might
also expect police response to vary region, states, or cities. Accounts of the civil rights
movement highlight the intense police repression activists felt across the South, substantiating a
need to control for region. We introduce dummies for the South, Northeast, Midwest, and West
(the base category). The model also includes interaction terms for each of the controls with the
year the event took place. This will provide a more detailed picture of where repression occurs
and against whom.
Because the dependent variable is ordinal and categorical, ordinal logistic regression is a
reasonable technique to begin with. However, results showed that the model did not meet the
parallel regressions assumption of the technique, so multinomial logistic regression is more
appropriate. The results are reported in Table 1 (Appendix D).
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Figure 4 shows the probabilities, over time, that police will respond to civil disobedience
with each of the response categories.3 Once again, we find clear evidence that the intensity of
police response to civil disobedience declines throughout the protest cycle. The graph shows a
marked decrease in police taking action and a corresponding increase in police being present but
taking no action. The probability that police will not attend one of these events also increases
slightly, while physical force and violence remain relatively constant across the period. The
trend toward a more tolerant policing of civil disobedience events is fairly linear, with no sudden
changes throughout the decade. The slight upward curve to the police present line, and slight
downward turn in the not present line might indicate a routinization of how police handle these
events. That is, as time goes on police may develop techniques to anticipate and respond to civil
disobedience events that in the past they did not attend. Overall, the general pattern is of
decreasing intensity of policing at events with civil disobedience, offering clear support for the
institutionalization hypothesis.
The interaction effects in the model (not shown) further strengthen the confidence in this
general pattern. Of all the effects included—across two social movements, three groups, four
regions, and event size—only one condition departs from this pattern. In the South, where the
civil rights movement was most active, police taking action actually increased dramatically,
while all other responses declined (except the use of violence, which did not vary noticeably).
However, yet again we see evidence that the police developed techniques to handle these events
that decreased the use of physical force—a notable feature of the early civil rights movement that
likely hurt the police force more than it helped it. In all other regions, with all other groups and
3 I do not include in the graph a line for no police present. The reader should note that because we are looking at probabilities, the five categories will sum to one. The omitted category can be easily obtained.
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movements, however, the same pattern obtains. The probability of police action declines and of
police being present but taking no action increases.
Figure 5 shows one interaction effect that, while not running counter to the overall
pattern, does differ in interesting ways. We still see the probability of police taking action
decreasing over time, and police being present but taking no action increasing. The notable
difference is that police violence and physical force drop dramatically across the period. The
figure shows the effect for events with 3500 participants. It shows that at civil disobedience
events in 1965, police are likely to use violence or physical force at roughly one-half of the
events. That number drops to about one in every ten events by 1975. As the size goes up from
there so too do the slopes for violence and physical force. For events with 10,000 participants
the probability that police would respond with violence in 1965 is an incredible 91 percent,
whereas by 1975 it drops to 18 percent! This remarkable decline in police intensity offers further
evidence for the institutionalization of civil disobedience as a protest tactic during the protest
cycle of the 1960s and 70s.
DISCUSSION
Social change, according to William Sewell, is a process of structural realignment. A
series of events disrupt the existing alignment to the point where it can no longer accommodate
the events and is then susceptible to realignment. Protest cycles, long thought by movement
scholars to be catalysts of change, have not made full use of Sewell's theory of social structures.
The case that we have considered here, the 1960s and 70s wave of protest in the U.S., is a much
studied example of such a process of structural realignment. Whether the structural changes
observed are as dramatic as those of the French Revolution to which Sewell applies his theory is
not the question. Rather, we should ask whether the dynamics of protest cycles fit the model of
16
structural realignment and can usefully speak to it. This paper did not set out to answer this
question, but it does make use of Sewell's framework for seeing the larger picture within which
social movements sit. The repertoire of contention, a cultural structure that includes the set of
tactics available for use by movements, is one such structure available for realignment. If social
movements set out to change governments, policies, and social relations, they incidentally have
the effect of changing themselves and their own repertoires. But this does not happen in
isolation. The repertoire is a cultural construct that interacts with the audiences of protest—
police, protest targets, bystanders, and the state—and it changes in response to their responses.
Here we have examined the case of civil disobedience, a protest tactic that sparked a
cycle of protest. We find evidence that the tactic diffused to a variety of movements and groups
throughout the protest cycle, and, building on work by McCarthy and McPhail, we find that the
state adjusted its response to civil disobedience, changing its own structures, and in turn
facilitated structural changes among social movements. This dynamic interactive process is just
the kind of sequence of events that Sewell argues changes the face of history.
17
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0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.619
65
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
Year
Police not presentPolice present, no actionPolice action takenPolice used physical forcePolice use violence
Figure 4. Expected probabilities of police response to civil disobedience events in the U.S., 1965-75.
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
Year
Police not present
Police present, noactionPolice action taken
Police used physicalforcePolice use violence
Figure 5. Expected probabilities of police response to civil disobedience events with 3,500 participants in the U.S., 1965-75.
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Appendix A. Protest Tactics
1. Rally / Demonstration Demonstration, rally, etc. without reference to marching or walking in a picket line or standing in a vigil. Reference to speeches, speakers, singing, preaching, often verified by indication of sound equipment of PA and sometimes by a platform or stage. Ordinarily will include worship services, speeches, briefings. 2. March Reference to moving from one location to another; to be distinguished from rotating or walking in a circle with picket signs which by definition constitutes a picket. 3. Vigil These are almost always designated as such, although sometimes “silent witness,” and “meditation” are codewords; also see candlelight vigil; hunger/fasting vigil; If you find no designations re: vigils, meditations, silent witness, etc., but also no reference to sound systems or to marches, it may well be a vigil. Most vigils have banners, placardss, or leaflets so that people passing by, despite silence from participants, can ascertain for what the vigil stands. 4. Picket The modal activity is picketing; there may be references to picket line, to informational picketing; holding signs; “carrying signs and walking around in a circle”). Holding signs or placards or banners is not the defining criteria; rather it is holding or carrying those items and walking in a circular route, a phradse sometimes surprisingly found int eh permit application. 5. Civil Disobedience Explicit protest that involves crossing barricade, sit-in of blacks where prohibited, use of “colored” bathrooms, voter registration drives, crossing barricades, tying up phone lines. Also, violence such as bombing. 6. Ceremony These celebrate or protest status trasitions ranging from birth, death dates of individuals, organizaionts or nations, seasons, to re-enlistment or commissioning of miliitary personnel, to the anniversaries of same. Thes are sometimes referenced by presenting flowers or wreaths commemorationg or dedicating or celebrating status transitions or its anniversary; e.g., annual Merchant Marine memorial service; celebrate Chanukah, Easter, birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.). 7. Dramaturgical Demonstration Code ONLY if this is the modal activity; many demonstrations may contain some sequence of dramturgical activity; these may be concerts, theatrical, dance, musical, artistic, or some combination of the performing arts. 8. Motorcade Electoral campaign and other issues.
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9. Information Distribution Tabling / petition gathering, lobbying, letter-writing campaign, teach-ins. 10. Symbolic Display e.g., Menorah, Creche Scene, graffiti, cross burnings, signs, standing displays 11. Attack, by Instigators e.g., ethnic group victim of physical attack, by collective group (not one-on-one assault, crime, rape). Boundary motivating attack is “other group’s identity,” as in gay-bashing, lynching. Can also include verbal attack and/or threats, too. 12. Riot, Melee, Mob Violence Large-scale (50+), use of violence by instigators against person, property, police, or buildings seperaately or in combination, lasting several hours. 13. Strike / Slow-Down / Sick-Ins Employee work protest of any kind. Regular strike through failure of negotiations, or wildcat strike. 14. Conflict, No Instigator (distinct from codes 11 or 12) This includes any boundary conflicts in which no instigator can be identified, i.e., black/white conflicts, abortion/anti-abortion conflicts. Often, no claims will be discernable in the activity.
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Appendix B. Categories of Police Response 1. Police not present The report does not mention police at the event. 2. Police present, but no action taken Police are mentioned, but they do not interact with protestors. Likely roles include observing, setting up barricades, and directing traffic. 3. Police took action Police are reported to have interacted in the event. For example, directing marchers, disbursing crowds. 4. Police used physical force This includes making arrests, restraining or coercing participants, counterdemonstrators, or bystanders. 5. Police used violence Reported use of equipment such as guns, tear gas, pepper spray, etc.
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APPENDIX C. Correspondence analysis.
Figure 1. Protestor Tactics and Police Response, 1965-68
-0.7
-0.5
-0.3
-0.1
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8Rally
March
Vigil
DramaturgicalDemo
Ceremony
Civil Disobedience
Picket
Attack
SymbolicDisplay
Info.Distribution
Motorcade
Riot
Strike
conflict
NO POLICE
POLICE PRESENT
POLICE TOOK ACTION
POLICE USED PHYS. FORCE
POLICE USED VIOLENCE
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Figure 2. Protestor Tactics and Police Response, 1969-72
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8Rally
March
Vigil
DramaturgicalDemo
Ceremony
Civil Disobedience
Picket
Attack
SymbolicDisplay
Info.Distribution
Motorcade
Riot
Strike
conflictNO POLICE
POLICE PRESENT
POLICE TOOK ACTION
POLICE USED PHYS. FORCE
POLICE USED VIOLENCE
27
28
-0.7
Figure 3. Protestor Tactics and Police Response, 1973-75
-0.5
-0.3
-0.1
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7
-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8Rally March
Vigil
DramaturgicalDemo
Ceremony
Civil Disobedience
Picket
Attack
SymbolicDisplay
Info.Distribution
Motorcade
Riot
Strike
Conflict
POLICE PRESENT
POLICE TOOK ACTION
POLICE USED PHYS. FORCE
POLICE USED VIOLENCE
NO POLICE
Appendix D. Multinomial logistic regression of effects of event characteristics on police response to events of civil disobedience in the U.S., 1965-75.
Police present
Action
Physical Force
Violence
B p > | z | B p > | z | B p > | z | B p > | z | Year 0.4041666 0.367 -0.063634 0.494 -0.064042 0.701 -0.020483 0.895Civil Rights -31.88892 0.929 464.1431 0.009 798.5059 0.026 -33.61778 0.894Anti-War -145.047 0.671 -99.12034 0.589 -83.51802 0.753 -398.5207 0.227Blacks -70.57492 0.837 -113.7767 0.516 127.3489 0.658 257.1332 0.345Students -68.75073 0.798 -186.7609 0.183 -180.5077 0.522 -232.6972 0.352Women -348.5611 0.398 -109.9317 0.673 -47.79943 0.914 269.5353 0.61Size 0.2159137 0.064 0.1471492 0.2 0.1974655 0.199 0.2214249 0.076South 871.9499 0.385 -648.5383 0.004 -23.52658 0.952 -511.729 0.167Northeast 577.3456 0.537 -302.8549 0.113 118.6189 0.705 107.6382 0.728Midwest 949.0215 0.354 -612.2592 0.023 278.1818 0.51 517.5993 0.177Size*year -0.000109 0.065 -7.46E-05 0.201 -0.0001 0.2 -0.000112 0.076Civ. Rts. * year 0.0158411 0.93 -0.235639 0.009 -0.405514 0.026 0.0175628 0.891 Anti-War * year 0.0738489 0.67 0.0507124 0.586 0.0430062 0.749 0.203062 0.225Blacks * year 0.0360107 0.836 0.0577594 0.516 -0.064943 0.657 -0.130326 0.345Students * year 0.034533 0.8 0.0944619 0.184 0.0910663 0.525 0.1180989 0.352Women * year 0.1766643 0.399 0.055669 0.674 0.0242483 0.914 -0.136741 0.61South * year -0.442022 0.385 0.3295243 0.004 0.0121726 0.951 0.2601236 0.166Northeast * year -0.292595 0.537 0.1534529 0.114 -0.06013 0.705 -0.054968 0.726Midwest * year -0.481317 0.354 0.3106893 0.023 -0.140876 0.511 -0.262741 0.177constant -798.8649 0.366 125.3151 0.494 124.1616 0.706 37.2672 0.903
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